12034

Another Republican. What’s most surprising is this dude is 30 and not 55.

12035

Republican here in MI assaults a nurse practitioner in the office. So gross.

12036

Just rub some dirt on your Id and walk it off, you sissy.

12037

Something something poorly run states

12038

This doesn’t surprise me and probably was more to do with incompetence than any nefarious attempt to misuse federal money. States were thrown into a turmoil by COVID and then this sudden rain of Federal money that came with strings attached confused things further. It definitely saved a lot of big cities and states from having a COVID induced budget crisis, but it also introduced confusion as states had to figure out how to use the money appropriately and according to the rules.

12039

Hence, poorly run states.

12040

This doesn’t sound like garden variety incompetence in this case. I would normally agree with you, but this seems more ingrained.

12041

Oh absolutely, I wasn’t trying to disagree with you. Just adding my own elaboration since I’ve had a little inside-baseball peek from my friends that work in politics as to how how local government has struggled to properly handle the federal COVID money.

12042

Reynolds is a crook and always has been.

12043

I read that as garden variety incompetence. The label on those budget numbers wasn’t changing because someone was cooking the books, I think it was changing because someone was trying to fix the books that has been screwed up previously and possibly be a little sneaky about the corrections. I have no way to prove that obviously, it’s just a gut feel.

I think the important thing to focus on is that this is an accounting dispute. Nobody is saying that it’s naughty to pay salaries of govt employees with the COVID buxx. It’s perfectly allowed and that was the kind of thing the money was intended for. The auditor was calling out that the expenditures weren’t documented correctly and then the corrections appeared to be trying to conceal (vs honestly disclose) the original errors. Thus there was a risk feds might be mad and disallow that use of COVID buxx.

It’s also worth pointing out the Iowa Auditor is not of the same political party as the Iowa Governor, so there’s perhaps a desire on the auditors part to make this sound as bad as possible. This strikes me as a local political pissing match more than anything reflective of GOP corruption.

12044

Yeah, that’s fair. Depending on how you look at it (with the data we have, anyway), this could be “garden variety lazy fuckups” or “garden variety corrupt practices” which either way are getting more press attention than such a thing normally would because politics is fun like that. Perhaps we meet in the middle and say that the odds are good that they’re sufficiently incompetent they didn’t even realize what they were doing was probably corrupt? :)

12045

image

12046

I think the modern GOP breaks Hanlon’s Razor - insert whynotboth.gif

12047
12048

In the parlance of these idiots, those parents fucked around and now they’re about to find out.

12049
12050

Is that a thing? I thought the parties get to decide who represents them on the committees?

12051

It was God’s plan to kill 3 of you.

12052

Not gonna lie, this God fella kinda sounds like a dick.

12053

Perhaps we need to bring back virgin sacrifices?